


Giving Thanks

by enigmaticblue



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 05, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:18:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike finds something to be grateful for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Thanks

There didn’t seem much to be grateful for this year, not that Spike could see. He sat glumly, looking out the window of the empty office. He’d finally gotten tired of bugging Angel for a space of his own and just had Fred find out whether there were any empties. With all the downsizing that had gone on there were a couple to choose from, and he took the one with the view.

 

It wasn’t just being stuck here in L.A. with the Great Poof that was bothering him, though that was a part of it. (Just being away from Buffy hurt like hell, even if he tried not to think about it.) No, there was also the whole Cup of Perpetual Torment-thing that was eating at him. Spike had wanted to beat Angel with a passion, knowing full well that being human would give him a leg up on the other vampire in the fight for Buffy. She had cared for him, he knew that much, and Angel had wanted to be human too. Both were reason enough. He hadn’t a clue how much he wanted the rest of it, the clean slate and the humanity, until he’d drunk deep and discovered—Mountain Dew. Really, if they were going to play a trick like that, they might have at least filled it up with something decent, like a good scotch or maybe a nice tequila.

 

It was funny, but he’d never really thought about wanting to be human until just then, and as he’d told Angel, part of his desire for the cup was because he had wanted to beat his sire at _something_. He had wanted to take from Angel even as Angel had taken from him. That wasn’t all of it though. Spike knew that it had been his demon that wanted the soul, but apparently his soul wanted his humanity back. He had wanted it so very badly.

 

Of course, Buffy was out of his reach. Who was he to kid himself? She would have been just as out of his grasp if he were human; he’d had the right of it in those last moments. Buffy might care, but she didn’t love him.

 

So, really, there wasn’t much to be thankful for this year.

 

“Spike, are you coming?”

 

He turned to face Fred, who was standing in the doorway. “What’s that, pet?”

 

She smiled at him, her anger over he and Angel’s mutual thrashings apparently gone. “Thanksgiving. We’re having it in Angel’s apartment, but he’s not cooking. We had it catered this year.”

 

He gave her a slight smile, but shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t think so, luv. No point in ruining the festivities for everyone else.”

 

Fred frowned. “You wouldn’t be ruining it, Spike. Angel’s going to be there too, so it’s not like you’d be the only one not eating.”

 

“Not what I meant,” Spike replied, and went back to staring out the window. He could feel her at his back, wanting to say something that would convince him to come, and unable to think of a single argument. “Do you know?” he began. “This marks four years about to the day I started working with the Scoobies. Of course, I wasn’t exactly working with them at first. But Buffy was having Thanksgiving that year at the Watcher’s place, and I showed up on their doorstep, half-starved from that chip in my head.”

 

He turned then and looked at Fred with a peculiar sort of wistfulness. “She probably should have staked me then, but she didn’t.” Spike wore the gentle expression he showed no one else at Wolfram & Hart. With Angel he was all naughty boy, doing his best to disrupt the state of affairs. And Wesley and Gunn hardly saw him apart from their boss. But Fred got to see this side of him, which was a rather sad man who had lost more than anyone should ever have to lose.

 

“You miss her.” It was a statement, not a question, and he merely nodded in reply. Fred allowed the silence to stretch out, until she broached it with a careful statement. “There’s still good things, though, right? You know, things to be thankful for?”

 

Spike cocked his head at her in a sort of skeptical consideration. “What’s that then?”

 

“You’re solid again,” she pointed out practically. “And we didn’t even have to go to the ultimate evil to get, you know, apocalyptic matter.”

 

He smiled at her then, a genuine smile that made something flutter in her belly. She did _like_ Knox, but she wasn’t blind. “Thanks, pet. Suppose that’s true.”

 

Fred hesitated ever so slightly, and then offered another observation. “And you beat Angel.”

 

Spike paused, and then his smile grew about two sizes wider as he realized exactly what that meant. He’d beat Angel, his sire, the one vampire in all the world he most wanted to defeat. And he _had_ done it. That meant he could do it again, which in turn meant that when the time came to save the world and get the Shanshu prophecy, he really could be the one. After all these years of hearing how special Angel was, it might turn out that he was pretty special himself.

 

“You sure you want me there, pet?” he asked. No point in going if he wouldn’t be welcomed by anyone at all.

 

Fred looked surprised. “Yeah, Angel said I could invite whoever I want, and I wanted to invite you.”

 

“And Knox?”

 

She shrugged. “He was going home to visit family. That’s what Thanksgiving is supposed to be for, is family. And like it or not, you and Angel _are_ related.”

 

Well, Spike had never really liked it before, but he thought he might get used to the idea. He took that secret little pleasure that the thought of _beating Angel_ had engendered in him and tucked it away for the next time he was feeling a little low. There was, after all, always hope. “Lead on then, Fred,” he said gallantly, and warmed just a little bit to making Angel’s life hell for a little while longer.

 

It seemed there was something to be thankful for after all.


End file.
